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Thursday, May 21, 2015

Voodude: The World Is Cooling

I have been having a lively debate with a commenter on one of my recent postings. You can read it all here. This particular commenter, Voodude, claims the world is cooling, not warming. He gives all sorts of arguments to support his claim, including graphs. Let me present some of his arguments and address them for scientific accuracy.

As a note, Voodude has all of the traits of a troll, probably even a paid troll. It is the job of a troll to tie up bloggers and disseminate massive amounts of contrary misinformation, particularly cartoons and bad graphs. Voodude fits the profile precisely.

UPDATE: If someone prefers to remain anonymous, that's their business. But, I really don't like people being anonymous trolls and going around engaged in denial tactics. That is why I went to the trouble to find out who Voodude is. He is Brian Marple Mulder of Alberta, Canada. There is a lot more on him, but I just wanted to prevent him from being a coward hiding behind a computer screen.

The world is cooling, not warming.

This was Voodude's claim and some of the graphs he supplied. I will provide my response below.

Voodude"that they try to gloss over the significance of very real
data," This is VERY REAL DATA: COOLING since 1997. Data
from NOAA satellites. Are you gong to gloss over this? This is
not "short term" it is 17 years and it is not "regional
weather," but GLOBAL...

Voodude
There is no sense denying that the earth had warmed up, just
as there is no sense denying that it is cooling. What is
significantly different about my point is that it is currently
cooling and that your point is old news.

My Response

Let's start with the easiest ones first, the last two graphs he provided. His line of reasoning is that the combined area of the cool areas and the neutral areas are greater than the warming areas, therefore the planet is experiencing global cooling, not global warming.

First, let me say this is so ridiculous a claim that this is where I first suspected he was a paid troll. Why would someone make a claim this obviously fraudulent? Why do I call it fraudulent? Just consider the meaning of 'neutral.' It means it falls in neither group. So, you cannot group the neutral areas as being part of the cooling trend. As a counter argument, I would be equally justified in claiming, "The total of the neutral areas plus the warming areas is much greater than the cooling areas; therefore, global warming is real." That would be equally false. The correct interpretation of these two graphs is that the warming areas in both graphs is greater than the cooling areas in total extent.

Did Voodude really believe that horrible claim he made? I sure hope not. His profile on Disqus states he is an engineer. Since he remains anonymous, it is impossible to verify, but I seriously doubt it. By the way, why is Voodude so anonymous?

Let's look at his first two graphs, now. They are equally easy to debunk, but it is a little bit more involved. This issue here is the name at the top of the graph - Mr. Roy Spencer. If you ever use anything from Roy Spencer, it is an automatic given you're going to be wrong. One of his papers was submitted last summer for the Global Warming Skeptic Challenge. You can read about it, and him, here. There is an interesting article about his work in The Guardian.

The fact is, I don't trust him (and neither should you). So, let's go to the website and see for ourselves. This is a really nice website built by Dr. Kevin Cowtan in the Department of Chemistry at the University of York. Thank you, Professor, for this excellent site.

Once you go there, you can select the data you want and the time period. Let's try to replicate Voodude's claims and compare them to Spencer's graphs above. He said there was a cooling trend over the last 17 years and he only used the land data. This is what I get using the Berkeley land data for the period of 1999 to 2015:

Still oops! There's a warming trend of .14 degrees Celsius per decade.

Okay, we've already busted this claim all to heck and Roy Spencer's claims along with it, but why stop there? There is a major false argument deniers always go for, even though they know they are lying by doing so - they fail to include ocean warming which accounts for 93% of the planetary warming. This is what we get if we include the oceans in our calculations:

Including the oceans, we find there has been a warming trend of .144 degrees Celsius per decade over the selected time span.

We can safely say the Earth is not cooling and this claim is completely busted. But, there's more.

Cherry Picking

This is one of the most common false arguments used by deniers - picking the data that best produces the results desired. As scientists, it is our duty to examine all of the data and obtain the most correct result. As deniers, it is their job to manipulate the data to best obtain the predetermined result. Admittedly, they are pretty good at their job. Way too many people have fallen for this false argument. Certainly, Voodude has engaged in this very thing. Let's examine, again, his claim - the data from the last 17 years shows a cooling trend.

First question - Why did he go with 17 years? Normal cycles takes decades (manmade) or millennia (naturally occurring). Voodude never actually said this was a naturally occurring cooling trend, so we will consider both. In either case, 17 years is not enough to produce any valid conclusion. I can measure the global temperature in the Northern Hemisphere for the period of August through January and I'll get a cooling trend. That is an example of cherry picking. I selected August through January because I knew the seasonal change would show a cooling trend.

So, if 17 years is invalid, why did Voodude pick it? I'm at a bit of a loss because we already saw above there was no cooling trend during this time period - unless you use Roy Spencer data!

Ah, hah! He not only specifically selected his period, he specifically selected his source of data.

And, all the while, he rejected the use of ocean warming.

This is the very definition of cherry picking. What did Voodude have to say about this?

I don't consider cherry picking to be
applicable when the end of the data is current. If one picks a period, like,
1966-1968, both end-points "picked” ... then, that is cherry
picking. But specifying one point, as in, a temperature series, while the
other point is "now” ... that's a bit different. What, then, are the
alternatives? If the end-point is “now”, either I pick the starting point, or
you do... somebody has to pick the starting point... So, then, what is the
point in labelling a data series (that has the current point at one end)
"Cherry Picking”? The current month is taken as the starting point -no
cherry picking- and the root-mean-square, linear regression analysis
is computed, going back in time, as far as possible, such that the trend is COOLING.
The slope, as returned by the linear regression analysis, is negative. Some
temperature time-series do not support any cooling at all. If the data
supports the conclusion, then IT IS COOLING. You may argue about
the length of the trend, as many are short; or about the statistical
significance, because temperature series tend not to be significant, but if the
data support the conclusion, IT IS COOLING.

His argument is, if he uses today as his end point, he can use any point he wishes and it isn't cherry picking. But, isn't cherry picking defined as using the period you want? Even if he is using today as one endpoint, he is still selecting the period so it will fit his desired results. So, he has sidestepped the very question and issue and fails to address how he used a very specifically selected time period, data set and ignored the ocean warming. But, there's more.

Straw Man Argument

Christopher said, of the IPCC, "However, it's evaluations and
decisions are based on peer-reviewed science"
so
Where's the Science in this?
IPCC official, Ottmar Edenhofer, speaking in November 2010: “But one must
say clearly that we redistribute, de facto, the world's wealth by
climate policy. … one has to free oneself from the illusion that international
climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about
how we redistribute, de facto, the world’s wealth…” "This has almost nothing
to do with environmental policy, anymore.”http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/star...

Christopher said, of the IPCC, "However, it's evaluations and
decisions are based on peer-reviewed science"
so
Where's the Science in this?”At a news conference [22Jan2015] in Brussels, Christiana
Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change,
admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from
ecological calamity, but to destroy capitalism."This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting
ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change
the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years,
since the Industrial Revolution," she said.Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will be
adopted at the Paris climate change conference later this year, she added:
"This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves,
which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for
the first time in human history."
Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-...

The answer to Voodude's question in both cases is the same - there is no science in these quotes. So, why was he bringing them up? Simple, they are straw man arguments.

A straw man argument is when a new topic is inserted into a discussion to divert attention from the original argument. This allows the person inserting this argument an opportunity to attack the straw man and make it appear as if they dissected the original argument.

Voodude was making an argument that the world is cooling. What does either of these two quotes above have to do with that topic? If you can't find anything then we are in agreement. The fact is, Voodude threw these out in an attempt to divert attention to the fact he had no science to support his claims. This is a very common strategy among deniers - they have no science to support them, so they distract the audience with something else.

By the way, both of those quotes were taken out of context in an attempt to make them sound different than they were spoken. Of course, that is another false argument, but we'll leave that for another day. Here is a link to a site showing the full quotes.

Conclusion

There is little doubt in my mind Voodude is a paid hack for the denier lobby, probably the Heartland Institute. The reason I specifically mentioned that group of deniers is because we were engaged in a series of exchanges exposing Heartland, Tom Harris, and Russell Cook for the paid deniers they are when Mr. Voodude suddenly shows up. The timing is especially suspicious with the appearance of Russell Cook who is known to attack climate scientists and climate science bloggers in attempts to intimidate them. Both Harris and Cook were getting beaten up rather badly and ran away, only to suddenly be replaced by Voodude. I can easily imagine Cook calling up Voodude and telling him he needed to tie up my blog.

So, if you come across Voodude, be warned about what he is. But, then again, since he refuses to reveal who he is, all he has to do is change his handle and appear as someone else.

But, isn't that what you would expect from someone who is afraid of the science?

70 comments:

Of course it doesn't prove anything, but a few days ago I caught Voodude cutting and pasting without attribution from a year-old article by Tom Harris that is archived on Anthony Watt's WUWT site. https://disqus.com/home/discussion/thedailycaller/paper_climate_policy_models_are_useless/#comment-2034011961

One more coincidence to add to the fact that he disappeared so suddenly from the conversation mentioned in the Conclusion above -- after spending hours posting there almost continuously -- as soon as Christopher and I started speculating that he might be a paid troll.

I'm sorry Dr Keating but I'm not sure I agree with you 100% on your math there. I'm no global warming denier - quite the opposite. I read your blog because I love the wonderful amount of information you provide about global warming.

However, just from a stats point of view I think you've made an error here in that you've used the implicit assumption that the events you're calculating the odds for (9 of the top 10 hottest months occurring in the last 2 years) are independent of each other - so if the 12 month period ending in May 2015 being among the hottest on record is event A and the the one ending in April 2015 is event B you calculate the likelihood of them both being among the hottest as

P(A and B) = P(A)*P(B|A) = (24/1624)*(23/1623)

However, if these two 12 month periods share 10 months between them, surely the value of P(B|A) is substantially higher than 23/1623. Imagine for the sake of argument a case where the period of November 2014 - February 2015 was very hot - so hot that it moved the whole year into the top 10 all on its own. In this fictitious case the value of P(B|A) would be close to 100% because practically any 12 month period that included the hot period would be in the top 10 unless there were some unusually cold months to counterbalance it - which would be unlikely.

To calculate what this actually is would require information about the temperature anomalies themselves and is beyond my ability to determine. But I think you've oversimplified a bit in using the basic conditional probability. The calculations you've used could apply to the top 10 years, but not the top 10 overlapping 12 month periods.

Just a point of clarification. I love your blog. Keep up the good work!

I had considered this very question when I was doing the calculations. What I decided was the chances of the different months being one of the coldest months ever recorded was the same as if they were one of the hottest ever recorded. The net effect was that it didn't make a significant difference.

However, I believe your question (and objection) is valid enough that I have approached one of the mathematicians that did the original calculation for his opinion. I will publish it if he responds.

This is a great post Chris! You lay bare some of the specific ways that deniers manipulate data, in order to create the illusion that somehow scientists are so dumb that they have not already examined, or have simply missed, the supposedly valid objections deniers raise. For example, we all know that if the long term data really showed no warming trends, not only would climate scientists NOT try to manufacture such warming trends, but they would also not be foolish enough to think that such supposedly valid challenges to their analysis, could be slipped past tens of thousands of scientist, and indeed, millions of people who are now very interested in being informed about AGW! The truth is, that most of their most clever schemes are really based on nothing but smoke and mirrors, which when used, give the impression that their observations are simply based on common sense? One perfect example you brought up is the claim that the global temperature graph showing both hotter, colder and neutral temperature areas on Earth, seems to contradict the existence of a global warming trend with some kind of commonsense observations. But as you point out, if neutral areas yield no changes in temperature, (during the timeline of the graph), when they are added to either warmer or colder areas on the same graph, neutral temperature themselves can neither corroborate nor deny any warming or cooling trends? As you point out, the correct assessment compares the total warming areas with the total number of cooling areas. Thus, what, at first, might seems relevant in Voodudes arguments, really signifies nothing--nothing but statistical smoke and mirrors!

The meteorologist which I questioned, who wrote a letter of AGW denial in one of my area newspapers, used a similar ploy when trying to debunk the fact that more and more warming temperatures are being recorded---by diverting the issue into one of acknowledging that in the past there were far fewer populated areas in any given geographical locations. He then reasoned that since there now are a far greater number populated towns and cities, that therefore, there are now more areas that report record highs--thus claiming that this fact makes all temperature records suspect because of that simple fact. However, if one just ignores all the smoke and mirrors, one realizes that we do indeed, have a long list of changing records for specific areas, like Minneapolis, New York, or Miami Beach, etc etc! Therefore, when reading the temperature records from those specific areas, we really do know if New York is becoming warmer or colder over time. the same goes for Albuquerque, Tuscaloosa, or even Moose Jaw Manitoba. No matter what the size or exact location of any population center, most of them have relatively long weather records that can be used to determine if indeed, higher temps have been increasing over time!

The art of denial has to do with convincing the public that reputable climate researchers, are really the ones using smoke and mirrors---in order to prevent anyone from really seeing through the massive smoke screen they hide behind and the blinding flash from the mirrors that they use!

One thing I have heard recommended, is that when anyone seems to be implying that a "gotcha" type of revelation brought up by a denier which is then accompanied with the beseechment to just go to such and such a site, where the truth will be plain to see, is that one really SHOULD check out that site, since often what is claimed there, is just not true, or, has been taken out of context, cherry picked, and/or embellished with an impressive sounding and convoluted explanation that sounds impressive, but really mean vert little, or nothing at all!

The strategy they employ is a childish attempt to turn the table by accusing genuine climate scientists of being guilty of the vert faults and unethical behaviors that deniers really thrive on.

"stellar" - Tell me, if Mann is so respected, did Trenberth file an amecus brief, favouring Mann, in Mann v Styen? Did Gavin file a brief for Mann? Did Patchy file a brief to support Mann? Did ANYONE step up to defend Mann? The New York Times did. Anybody else? Bueller? Anyone?

I am not familiar with the legal issues but I am familiar with your straw man arguments. What does any of this have to do with science? And, yes, Mann's reputation in the science community is stellar. Which explains why people who reject science don't like him. They can't refute his work.

Never said they did. However, in a real atmosphere, so called "greenhouse gases" transfer heat by collisions to N2 and O2 (and vice versa). So, actual heat, from, oh, let's say condensation and freezing from thunderclouds at the tropopause ... let's say some of that heat is transferred to and O2 molecule. That heat might be transferred to a CO2 molecule by collision, and that CO2 molecule - because of the infrared capability that matches the heat transferred into it - radiates a photon. Even the latent-heat-loaded H2O might collide with a CO2, transfer heat, and have the CO2 radiate the photon.

Remember, the photon can go off in any direction, but, there are less greenhouse molecules above it than below, probabilistically enhancing the upwards escape to space.

Your comment did nothing to address Dr. Mann's reputation in the science community and did nothing to address the science itself. It was a straw man, just like this most recent comment of yours. Amazingly, you cannot address the science. Paid troll.

Clouds form, preferentially, when the sea surface temperature "tries" to exceed a somewhat fixed value. Excess heat is then rejected by the cloud albedo enhancement. That is the darker spot in the upper righthand corner...

CO2 has a great impact, if there were none, and the earth went from none to, say 200 ppmv. It is logarithm-like, but physical analogs to mathematical concepts don't hold "all the way" ... CO2 concentration is more of an asymptote, which never reaches the line. Meanwhile, CO2 fertilization, the β effect, has been enhancing net primary production, removing CO2. What happens to rock-weathering as CO2 concentrations go up?

The "no global global warming in x years" gets trotted out at WUWT from time to time. The fact that they only present the lower troposphere synthesised data is an obvious enough cherry-pick.

The starting point cherry-pick is a bit more subtle. They work backwards from the current month to find a zero trend line (Christopher Monckton even says he has a computer program to find it; what better definition of a cherry-pick is there? :-) ). The trick works because of the large El Nino spike around 1998, plus the fact they only do this when the current month is low. The IPCC points out that trend calculations are sensitive to start and end points, and must be interpreted with caution.

If we do see another spike due to the current El Nino, it will be interesting to see if it stops the zero trend line trick from working. Personally I would rather see people use annual data, not monthly data to at least remove some of the noise caused by seasonal variability.

Don't forget that the government has a habit of granting extremely large tax breaks as well as government subsidies to particular companies--including big oil and energy companies that really on, or produce, fossil fuels.

In return corporate executives often feel no obligation to include the welfare of their fellow, and poorer, Americans as parts of their business models. All too often decisions to outsource labor or production to foreign companies are in response to profit motives, alone, while the governments decisions to protect the welfare of the middle class are examples of using money to directly benefit American citizens and consumers.

Of course without the fossil fuel industry and the products or services it has created, Americans would never have enjoyed much of the prosperity they have received in the past. But a necessary transition to green or renewable fuel sources, is just one of many historic changes to the economic basis of the world.

In earlier centuries we had an agriculturally based economy until mass production and the availability of electric power, transformed us into a manufacturing economy providing entirely new types of employment for people to make livings with.So, if we are forced to become part of an economy based on renewable sources of energy that will represent another kind of change. As in all times before, changes will not always come easily or overnight, but I doubt that global warming is being concocted in order to destroy capitalism, or rob from the rich to pay the poor. As I said, in a capitalist economy even Exxon Mobile is perfectly free to invest in green energy and even to dominate energy markets in that way. Merely asking the wealthy to give up a small part of their bounty for the good of all, is hardly a sequel to "Robin Hood."

I really wish that you or any other denier could give me a reasonable scenario, under which the government or scientists, or everyday Americans, could end up controlling the affairs and economy of the world. Considering that every major scientific body in the world, (not just America), endorses the fact that AGW is real and something to be quite concerned about, and since you now seem to think that the UN itself is now supposedly part of the plot, the burden of proving some grand conspiracy is yours.So please let me know how expanding the use of green fuels, is going to hand over the control of the world to liberals or the damn scientist who are scheming to get a piece of the pie? If you think the danger of that is so real, you should be able to offer a reasonable and convincing scenario for how it will happen? So, go ahead, enlighten us!

So any evidence that shows you and Russell Cook might be very wrong, is nothing more than a logical fallacy? Are you saying that because you are always or seldom wrong, then those who find facts which contradict you must be using a logical fallacy based argument? In other words, anyone who disagrees is wrong, because the two of you are nearly or always right? Sounds a bit self affirming and really downright kooky!And aren't you someone who frequently says, "I stopped reading after...."

That statement hardly proves that you are open minded to the opinions or to the knowledge of others?

I fail to see how your previous implication that AGW affirmers, want to redistribute the wealth, can be taken any other way than as a political statement? And anyway here is an exact quote taken from your recent comment:

"I refuted that by pointing out two quotes by high-up leaders of the IPCC making public statements of a highly-political nature, unsupported by science or published papers..."

So your not being political when accusing the IPCC or injecting politics? Especially when in the next breath that their political public statements were unsupported by science of published papers? Usually when someone uses terms like re-distributing wealth, and accuses a major world body of being politically motivated, that's a dead giveaway that such a person is motivated at least partly by politics themselves.

The possibility that you are making such points merely to confirm that you are taking the high road when arguing, is truly a remote one, and a contention that both you and those who differ can easily see through.

Here is a website that refutes the ideas that all arguments made by AGW affirmers are political in nature:

"Usually when someone uses terms like "re-distributing wealth," and accuses a major world body of being politically motivated, that's a dead giveaway that such a person is motivated at least partly by politics themselves."

Exactly. The IPCC is a political, bureaucratic organization, cloaked in cherry-picked "science"

... "re-distributing wealth" is exactly the term used by Otto Edenhofer, of the IPCC

"... climate change policy is about how we redistribute, de facto, the world’s wealth…” "This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy, anymore.”

It is only a google translate; but the paras around where the 'quote' comes from changes the context significantly:

This all sounds not by climate policy, which we know.

Basically, it is a big mistake to discuss climate policy separated from the major issues of globalization. The climate summit in Cancún end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we do not have 11 000 gigatonnes of carbon in the coal reserves beneath our feet - and we may be deposited only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we are to keep the 2 ° C target. 11 000 to 400 - there is no way around the fact that a large proportion of fossil reserves must remain in the ground.

De facto, the expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to an entirely different development than the one that has been initiated with development policy.

First of all, we have industrialized countries the atmosphere of the international community virtually expropriated. But one must say clearly: We distribute by the climate policy de facto the world by assets. That the owners of coal and oil which are not enthusiastic, is obvious. One has to free himself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has to do with environmental policy, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole, almost nothing.

Nevertheless, the environment suffers from climate change - especially in the South.

It will be a lot to do to adapt. But that's just much more than conventional development policy addition: We will see in Africa with climate change a decline in agricultural yields. But this can be circumvented, if the production efficiency is increased - and especially if the African agricultural trade is embedded in the global economy. But then we have to see that successful climate policy just needs a different global trade and financial policies.

Keep it in the ground, So if a country is basing their economy on exporting a fossil fuel, they need help and compensation in developing an economy that works toward a sustainable climate AND economy.

"The trick works because of the large El Nino spike around 1998,"OK, so what COOLING trend exists in the UAH TLT data, derived from NOAA satellites, if we purposefully avoid "the large El Nino spike around 1998" ... well, a COOLING trend since September, 2000 (to today). "The trick works because of the large El Nino spike around 1998,"

I don't have a temperature record for Moose Jaw either---the point is simply that we DO have long temperature records for many specific cities, towns and areas, therefore we can ABSOLUTELY know if temperatures in them have been rising over time. I said this in response to a letter writer whose letter was published in one of my local newspapers, because he attempted to deny the significance of rising temperatures by implying that, because particular areas now contain more populated cities and towns, with more inhabitants than in the past, this means more records are now available to be collected from all of them them? However, this observation in no way can dispute the temperatures we have for specific cities or towns in the same areas. So even if temperatures in Prince Albert (to use your own example) have been part of a local cooling trend since about 1880) we know this because we are able to look at ITS particular temperature records---as we can also do in just about any other urban location. However, rising or lowering temperature in any one area or locality, do not prove the existance any trend consisting of either rising or lower temperatures---because although Prince Albert might have average yearly temps of say, 50 degrees, (a guess), Australia and India may be simultaneously undergoing terrific heat waves of 110 degrees or more. So how long is it going to take you to understand that (global) warming trends are determined by examining (global) temperature records--for God's sake, not just in Prince Albert or Moose Jaw! This is not a hard concept to grasp, and I don't know why you find it so difficult to understand?

A cooling trend established by examining only one year? I don't know it this graph is accurate but it's pretty obvious that when the entire record is graphed, there is a pretty obvious rising temperature trend in California that happened between around 1900 up until the present. And when the graph is read from about 1900 and after, which is the way it is always done, this warming trend cannot help but be observed.

Its seems to me that the results you see, must be coming from temperature data and an analysis done of it, on the Bizarro world.

Again, you're refusing to recognize that you're blanket condemnation of the UN as being a politically motivated organization, is really a political view in itself.

The IPCC, does not cherry pick science, unless you beieve that examining the findings of a large number of studies done by noted authorities on climate change, is somehow an example of bias?

I don't know about you, but when I want help with my taxes, I will consult a tax expert. When I need my kidney stones removed I consult a Dr., and when I want someone to advise me on how to build my financial portfolio, I will seek the help of an investment firm.

Who do you think the UN should consult in order to become informed about climate change---a carpenter, a beautician, or a denier who deliberately distorts and lies about the findings of esteemed climate scientists?

Anyone can, submit scientific research to be peer reviewed, as many contrarians have. But the reason deniers are often refuted by peer reviews, is simply because there are mistakes and flaws in their research! You're free to rely on those with no real understanding of science, or those who deliberately distort it, but I am sticking with those proven authorities who are much more knowledgeable than less eduaated people who attempt to deny man-made global warming.

The link you gave was not always easy to understand since meaning might have been lost in the translation from German to English---the grammatical construction of German is not the same as that of English. But the author seemed to be noting the difficulty encountered by trying to get all countries to co-operate. And, the economic changes he described were not alarms about socialism--just the fact that the task we face will not be easy, and it will alter portions of our global economic operations. The fact that less money might go to oil companies and more to those establishing green energy harvests, in on no way necessitates establishing a socialist or Communist system, but it does mean that the forms of energy we rely on in the future will be produced and sustained by using different methods. Capitalism may need to adjust, but it will not end because of renewable fuels, rather there will be new companies to invest in, and new entrepreneurial ventures. If you think this means liberals and tree huggers will rake in the dough, rather than Exxon Mobil---you're wrong, and you are focusing on politics to justify your fears!

*sigh* ... The end point is now ... so I didn't pick that. The start point is mathematically determined (how far back can the analysis show a cooling trend?). For example, this chart of Califorina shows ZERO cooling trend. When analyzing a temperature time-series, the data either supports a cooling trend, or it does not. Prince Albert supports the cooling trend, State-wide NCDC California, does not:

Trends can be short, or statistically insignificant, but, a linear regression analysis is an appropriate tool for determining a trend. My criteria is a negative slope, however small. This means "reaching back" as far as possible, which is statistically insignificant ... that doesn't mean that the cooling trend is insignificant (perhaps a shorter span would test out as significant) ... There is a balance, in analyzing temperature trends, with a simple least-squares linear regression. When it comes to a "flat line" - the "pause" or "hiatus" in warming temperatures ... it is difficult to say if a result of +0.000005 is a statically significant "warming" (because it is, after all, positive) ... one could argue that any positive slope is a "warming" ... but, what about a negative slope? I choose to state that any negative slope is a COOLING result.

Dr Roy Spencer said so, in his blog postings. But, in a more recent blog post, (June of last year) he said that the UAH lower troposphere Version 6 will reduce the difference between the UAH and RSS data.”As we finish up our new Version 6 of the UAH dataset, it looks like our anomalies in the 2nd half of the satellite record will be slightly cooler, somewhat more like the RSS dataset. •••”